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True Detective: Omega Station (2015)
Let's just move on to Season 3
Praise the Yellow King, Season 2 is over. After a laborious eight weeks of television viewing, we can finally move on. Jordan (Kelly Reilly) summed up Season 2 in one concise sentence: "You can't act worth sh*t." Of course she was talking to Frank (Vince Vaughn) who deserves the criticism more than anyone in True Detective history. But let's be honest, this finale, season, writer, inconsistency of directors, direction and story wasn't worth sh*t. This season was an utter waste of time (which now I unfortunately view as a flat, boring, cliché circle).
As far as finales go, this one tried it's hardest to tie a tidy bow around every minuscule side story and character it could while restraining itself just enough from literally holding up cue cards with, "CLUE" or "THIS IS A BAD GUY" written on it. Again we watch the painful dialogue of Vaughn
who takes
his time
to get through
a
sentence
and tries
his hardest
to sound
like a believable... tough guy. And again, he falls flat on his face. But he's not the only one. The crunch for time forces dialogue out of our actors at an unnatural pace. In a season where everyone has been narrating every single aspect of their thought process during every single second of every episode so the audience understands every single detail of what is happening in the story, we're suddenly stuck on the receiving end of a fire hose of ideas and self-discoveries that consistently try to resolve this ongoing drivel. Which makes me wonder, WHY did we sit through this terrible boring story for weeks only to be hit over the head with a frying pan in the end?? Why didn't I just watch the last two episodes? Oh, please explain it to me Mr. Farrell.
This is so present as the finale begins to rev up its engine. Ray and Ani have just found out that Paul is dead, and likely killed by a corrupt cop. Any normal human being would be devastated by the loss of a friend/colleague (even knife-wielding Ani shrugs out a few forced tears for Paul. Sweet, innocent Paul). But just as we begin to see the possibility of a tender moment the season has been lacking, our characters (and story) switches gears to push the tedious narrative. Suddenly Ray solves the whole mystery! "Wait a minute
" he says in his gravelliest of gravelly voices (Ani stops crying/forgets about Paul). "That kid, the one from the movie set. He's the killer!" Whoa! Collin Farell reads Reddit too?! Give. Me. A. Break.
I'd like to say that the finale had a few redeeming points for the season, but I really can't. Everything from Ani's terrible wig, Frank's happenstance kidnapping, his standoff with the over- the-top-cliché-we're-loco-mang-Mexican-gangbangers, his delirious walk of shame confronting demons in the desert before death (yeah we get it, your dad was a dick), Farrell's 'noble' attempt to connect with his son outside of cell service, then his best Swiss cheese impression. But especially the quasi-Feminist final moment of the season that I'm sure Pizzolatto wrote specially to respond to last season's naysayers who poo-poo'd his overt chauvinistic tropes writing single-dimension women. I thought the Dexter finale was bad. Slow clap to snooze.
OK, OK, OK. On a positive note, even I can admit that this was the best episode of the season. EVERY episode should have had the momentum and drive that this one had, and it would have made the season worth watching. I would also like to give kudos to whoever served as the director this episode (it doesn't seem to be credited anywhere, which makes me wonder if Cary Fukunaga suspiciously got dragged back into the mess. And if so, please PLEASE come back and save this thing in Season 3).
Nonetheless, let's just chalk this season up to a mistake. A mild snafu. Nick Pizzolatto, you tried your best at the California noir scene and it didn't work. It ended the way we all knew it would, quite predictably and unfulfilled, and nothing really happened from episode one until the end except for hours and hours of meaningless dialogue. The good news is you have the success of season 1 to fall back on and learn from. So if I have any advice for you, Mr. Pizzolatto, it would be for next season to go back to what works. Go back to being dark. Not Vince Vaughn desperately pretending to be a gangster from 'The Mask' dark, but serious backwoods messed up Sh*t. Go back to being weird, and wild, and unfamiliarly crazy and different. Go create another cult, find a bizarre land that nobody wants to think about but deep down we all secretly want to see for ourselves. And take us there, force us to watch all the scary sh*t that goes on, and freak us the fu*k out so we can't turn away. That is your yellow king, not whatever California fool's gold Season 2 tried to be.
True Detective: Black Maps and Motel Rooms (2015)
Same thing, different episode
As the penultimate episode, True Detective has positioned itself predictably for some end-of-the-season big showdown among our main characters. If they were relatable, interesting or even displayed decent acting, I'd probably care to be invested. But at this point it's been seven hours of the same snooze-fest, long and drawn out and ready to be put out of its misery. Vaughn continues to display his terrible acting ability, with laborious breaths taken between sentences, like an asthmatic grandpa sucking oxygen in a nursing home. Farrell's accent keeps changing from scene to scene, and half the time it's so overly gravelly it's unintelligible (and I don't care enough to rewind and understand him). Paul, who apparently was only there for collating documents, is killed off because he can't come to terms with who he really is. Ani throws herself at Ray, because hey that's what women do when they're in shock, right? And while we're at it, just throw in a bunch of random subplots and insubstantial characters from earlier in the season and stress their sudden importance. Remember that one girl, you know from the movie set who was randomly walking through with some paperwork? You were probably napping, I know I was, but she's important now. Probably has something to do with the murder(s), so keep an eye out in the finale.
I can't figure out if this season is so terrible because of the writing, the acting, the directing or some combination of the three. Perhaps it's because Pizzolatto is trying so hard to prove something, be that masculinity, sexual frustration, his take on drugs, corruption, or what it means to be a "bad man." He's shoving it so hard down our throats that's it's really an unpleasant experience, and a boring one at that. While I can agree with some that this episode reflected much of what made Season 1 so successful, there's still something about it that feels so tedious, and really so forgettable (ratings have shown that this last episode was the least watched of the season). I could easily go back and watch all of Season 1 from start to finish again. And probably again after that. But you'd have to pay me a significant amount of money to go back and re-watch any of this season. It's just not good. I really hope this season is a wake-up-call for Pizzolatto and takes his ego down a peg or two. With HBO apparently green- lighting another go at it, hopefully he can take some time to write a decent script and not rush out some overly- baked, overly-reaching piece of junk. Even more, I hope Pizzolatto can make amends with Cary Fukunaga, who at this point was so clearly the driving force and success behind the camera last season. Without him, we're stuck with this drivel, the same thing, over and over, and over again.
True Detective: Church in Ruins (2015)
Predictable and boring
Is it me, or did Colin Farrell's accent totally change? He's suddenly talking like Ben Stiller's character in Dodgeball. I kept waiting for him to drop the line, "Nobody makes me bleed my own blood." Anyway, this episode was god awful. I'm tired of the build- up to let-down, where all our main characters stumble into danger then skip away scratch free. This seems to be Pizzolatto's best, and questionably only tactic to get viewers to tune in. The blatant David Lynch thievery is starting to be an insult and less of homage. Five minutes into this episode and I'm rolling my eyes. There isn't going to be a shootout with a main character dying? Shocker. Please, continue with the pointless dialogue and make sure to over- explain everything to the audience, especially about childhoods and anger issues so we can truly understand what makes these characters tick...
The scenes with Vaughn and Farrell are painful to sit through. The dialogue feels forced, and the actors seem to be confused by the lines they are supposed to deliver. For a comedian (*cough*) Vaughn has the worst timing in the business. It's like he takes so much energy remembering his lines he never takes a second to contemplate how an actual conversation works. His eyes just glaze over as chunks of sentences fall from his mouth. I know this has been beaten to death, but honestly Vince Vaughn is cinematic cancer. Someone must have owed him a huge favor or he has the best agent in Hollywood.
Just like last week the 'detectives' are trying to solve the Caspere murder on their own time, which just feels dated. If the roof of a meth house can explode downtown and 50-or-so gang bangers, protesters, and cops can be shot dead in the streets without national coverage or outcry, then it's clear nobody cares about a corrupt politician. But we're six episodes in, and much like the audience our main characters feel a tedious obligation to see this thing through.
We have a few entertaining scenes this week: The aforementioned kitchen snooze fest, with Frank and Ray trying desperately to talk and not hold hands. Frank tries to connect with Stan's son in one of the most forced, unbelievable scenes of the season (which is saying a lot). It's like the director told the child actor "OK, now you'll just sit there and look sad, then at some point put your arm around Vince and pretend he said something meaningful." Also, who is Stan? I get that he worked for Frank and got killed, but when Vaughn delivered the line, "He was the best at what he did," I couldn't for the life of me understand what he meant. Stan was the best
father? The best
bodyguard? Best
drug dealer? Maybe? Stan certainly wasn't the best at character development.
Ray tries to connect with his 'son' only to discover there's merely 'Friends' on TV (quite the transparent allusion). Ray flails around in a cliché drug-fueled montage. I thought for sure Farrell would go method (I mean he has the history of drug abuse to tap into), but again it fell flat. For starters Ray puts down a significant amount of blow and scotch before punch dancing an off-Broadway version of Footloose. Somehow avoiding cardiac arrest(?), Ray manages to pick up the phone, dial his ex to have a thoughtful conversation about the future of their child. Has Pizzolatto ever been around cocaine or tried it himself? You drink that much booze and snort caterpillar rails off the coffee table and you're not going to logic your way through anything, especially a telephone call. I laughed when his ex said, "You're drunk." No, he SHOULD be drunk, and SHOULD be grinding his teeth to the roots. But he's acting, and not doing a very good job in the process.
Paul stared at things this week. At one point he sprung out of a bush and tackled a guy, then conveniently listened to some henchmen explain the details of their plan.
Ani struggled with cat scratch fever, showing off her slice and dice technique of carving up men made out of wood (which hopefully means she'll attack Vince Vaughn and his acting career in a future episode. Zing). Apparently having a wooden stab doll in your kitchen and a wall for the "killing knives" isn't weird to anyone. Anyway, Ani put on a wig and eyeliner to blend in with a stocked pond of Eastern European surgically enhanced sex-dolls at the David Lynch/Stanley Kubrick knock-off party (err-yup, totally believable). Before going into the party she takes a Binaca spray of "pure Molly" which again seems to be something Pizzolatto knows little about. Suddenly Ani is having flashbacks(?) depression(?) and fearful hallucinations(?), yet simultaneously avoiding any realistic effects of MDMA such as euphoria, excitement, and 'the good times'. Even after she pointlessly tries to vomit out the spray (which was absorbed sub-lingually) she can hardly stand up. Not much of a stimulant if you think about it. The music from Murder She Wrote plays overhead. It's a pretty boilerplate orgy scene, and not worth the hype. Suddenly that girl(?) from the first episode shows up and Ani has to get her out of there right this second. Some guy (predictably) grabs her. She must smell his mahogany cologne because she instinctively slices him up like a Lincoln log. Luckily Paul is there (the luck!) and opens the door. Though they can hardly walk, he tells them to run and they're off like pumas. For a second it seems someone might get hurt, but this is Season 2, so the main characters make it out safely. Uh oh, Ani thinks she might have killed someone! No worries. Ray flips on the headlights and tears off into the night.
There's campy, and then there's crappy.
True Detective: Other Lives (2015)
66 days later...
If only so lucky, it would be 66 days later and this terrible season would finally be over. But once again we're stuck in the same place (albeit not the same place, but essentially the same situation). Last episode ends with a horrible shoot out where everyone dies, yet our main characters miraculously make it out alive (again). There's no real backlash or national media attention, just more mumbling and brooding conversations about nothing (again). Vince Vaughn and his wife are still trying to make a baby, and even with all their agonizing dialogue, they can't seem to communicate with one another (again). More lukewarm twists and turns with peripheral characters that don't seem to add much to the story (again). And then the build up to the final scene, where OMG something crazy might happen! Will one of our main characters die?? Tune in next week, I guarantee you won't be disappointed (again).
True Detective: Maybe Tomorrow (2015)
Lazy writing
Well it only took about 5 minutes to confirm Pizzolatto is a lazy hack of a writer. Step 1: Steal a page from David Lynch's play book (then proceed to ruin it). Step 2: Rely on a cliché cliff hanger to rope viewers into tuning in next week (then proceed to ruin it). Collin Ferrell is quite possibly the only reason to watch this show right now... and truth be told he should have been put out of his misery. That would have been a total game changer and would have set True Detective apart from any other show. But in the end it all ends up being lazy. I wonder which director Pizzolatto will steal from next week (then proceed to ruin it)...
True Detective: Down Will Come (2015)
Even gunfire at this point is putting me to sleep...
I'm not going to lie, I dozed off many times as I tried to watch this episode. Familiar rambling dialogue and unnecessarily complicated story lines quietly coo'd me to sleep on the couch. When I awoke there was gunfire, our main characters running around confused and horrified by the deaths of bystanders and coworkers, and then that terrible, terrible freeze frame ending. When it was all over, I sat on the couch wiping the confusion from my eyes and watching the end credits. I decided to watch the episode again the next day and despite a full night's sleep and many cups of coffee the next day, I still had to fight to stay awake and stay interested in whatever was going on.
I understand the idea of a slow burn, to allow a complicated story time to develop, and the intricacies of ideas and characters to reveal themselves when ready. But seriously, what the hell is going on here? There's about 80 characters who seem equally unimportant (including our main characters). Their lives and their struggles are neither tangible nor worth investing in. I am yet to hear an interaction between characters that would, a) Be spoken by a real human being in real life, and b) Be interesting enough for me to want to care, want to solve this 'mystery' or want to keep watching.
A strength of season 1 relied on universal fears and mysteries, from pondering the meaning of life, our significance (or insignificance) on earth, to the horrors of a faceless boogie man and the cultist undertones that still exist across the country. That's why people from all around the world tuned in each week. We could easily be hooked by the crazy dialogue, and even crazier mismatched story and time lines. We wanted to tune in because we seemed to be going somewhere we've been afraid of going, but deep down needed to see for ourselves.
This season has none of that. All the universal truths are all rote clichés we want to turn our heads away from. Perhaps I'm biased but I don't really care about a tiny made-up corrupt city somewhere near LA that may or may not be based off a true story. If it is, I'm more interested in knowing about what actually happened than what Pizzolatto is trying to weave together with his overhead shots of the highways and close ups of brooding faces. We see this corruption everyday in the news or outside our doors, so there's nothing unique to retelling what is being retold every day. I'm not interested in another corrupt politician or police officer. And spare me the shootout between the 'good' white cops and the 'bad' Mexican gang. Do we really need to lean that hard on stereotypes? Are we going to find out that Rick Springfield and the guru guy are actually 'bad' because their lives and teachings are nontraditional and weird? Will Colin Ferrell turn out to be a 'good' guy because he has a 'good' heart despite his 'bad' exterior? Will Ani (McAdams) actually have a vulnerable and sensitive female heart beneath that knife-wielding masculine-rough exterior? Spare me.
After four episodes (and watching this last one twice), I've really lost interest in the characters and meandering plot of this season. I understand how die hard fans are grasping on and begging everyone to stay patient because (fingers crossed) there's a huge reveal around the corner... But after this episode, even a huge shootout can hardly keep me interested (or awake).
True Detective (2014)
Season 2, just awful
Eliminating the bias of comparing seasons, True Detective Season 2 as a standalone is an utter failure. The story is flat, boring, and depends upon weaving a multitude of paltry stories together to somehow create a tapestry of depth. Is this about corruption, possibly something important about life? At this point who cares? Episode after episode this meandering only becomes redundant, unnecessarily complicated, and frankly unimportant. We've seen the same story many times before (whether it's Chinatown, or this latest episode's comparison to Heat), however there is nothing new or unique brought to the table this time around. It's all pointless dialogue, characters who don't deserve our interest, and a head writer so full of himself he can't see the forest for the trees (spoiler Mr. Pizzolatto: your forest is burning down, in a slow, miserable death). In essence, there is nothing worth watching in True Detective season 2.
Vince Vaughn is arguably the worst I've ever seen (both in his acting and acting as a general craft). While season 1 proved to break McConaughey from the chains of Rom-Com typecast, season 2 proves to me that some actors are bound to certain genres for a reason. Vaughn is not meant for drama and perhaps not meant for television. Watching him struggle each week to convey a character far different from himself was at first hilarious, but has now become painful. Every line and little soliloquy of word salad that falls out of Vaughn's mouth makes me cringe and shudder. Yes, McConaughey was long-winded and questionably delusional last season, but he had the stuff to pull off the craziness (and he has the awards to show for it). Nobody was shocked to hear McConaughy wax loco in Season 1 because it would probably be the same ideas he'd impart on you as you cheers'd Coronas and ate fish tacos on the beach in Venice. If Vaughn (or the rest of the Season 2 cast) said any of their dialogue to me in real life I'd have to laugh and tell them to grow up. Neither their characters nor their dialogue is believable or frankly unique enough to capture interest.
Aside from Vaughn's cancerous acting flop, there is a somewhat devoted effort by Colin Farrell, Taylor Kitsch and Rachel McAdams who show that they can act regardless of their character or the poor writing. It's clear they are giving their brooding characters their all and doing their best outside the show to hype it up and convince us all to stay patient, KEEP WATCHING!! Unfortunately their strength as actors gets lost in the lack of skill by the season's new director(s), the terrible writing, and the drivel of monotony they seem to be stuck within. This season could have been good, SHOULD have been great for these three actors. Unfortunately it really is not.
This season isn't a flop because the viewer's expectations and hopes of a second season 1 are not being fulfilled stylistically. It's clear that a show (head writer) can only ride the coattails of success for so long until the true colors come out. Pizzolatto has proved to us all that without Cary Fukunaga, True Detective season 2 is all cliché, poor writing, and pointless, pointless television viewing. At this point no amount of gunfire, crazy existential twists or Yellow King can rescue this show from it's pointless mumbling, a plot and idea that has drawn on for far longer than it should.
Wild (2014)
Boring and upsetting at best
Fans of Cheryl Strayed likely come away from this movie feeling reasonably content with the outcome. There's no challenge to the end product or hope for anything more. Reese Witherspoon is a pretty personification that many can put their hopes and dreams and selves into and flutter away to the pretty pictures of mountains for a few fleeting moments in their day. For the rest of us, however, the movie is quite unmemorable and intangible. If anything, we simply watch Strayed (Witherspoon) walk around like an entitled, annoyed bitch for two hours, getting into trouble, doing stupid things, hurting anyone close to her, and then crying over spill milk again and again. And all along there's this audacious overtone telling us we should be feeling sorry for Strayed and her struggles
give me a break.
It's clear Jean-Marc Vallee wanted to produce an Oscar-season prospect, not an accurate or truly vulnerable adaptation. Coming off his success with Dallas Buyers Club, Vallee wanted to shift momentum to a prettier landscape and fill in the rest with exhausting flashbacks for back story. I can visualize what he was aiming for, and it could have been a shoe-in for best picture or certainly best actress. Unfortunately the end product missed the target by thousands of miles. Wild is tiresome, disjointed and certainly not Oscar-worthy material. The big difference between the two films is that Dallas was based on a tremendous story, one of transformation and growth, which is why it resonated so well with audiences. Wild is not a tremendous story, not even a good one, and simply takes the same approach as another vain diatribe, "Eat Pray Love." Essentially, a struggling female writer feels trapped in her life and decides to try something extreme, get herself out of this rut and find purpose (then shockingly decides to write a book about it and capitalize off all the people who want to do the same. CRAZY!). I won't argue that Strayed didn't have a rough go at it. With the death of her mother, her rotten coping mechanisms through anonymous sex and heroin use, the consequent failure of her marriage and the downward spiral of her life, Strayed was headed nowhere before she found the path of the PCT. But that does not excuse how ego-driven and basic Wild is (and is told).
Strayed is the ugliest character in the story. Aside from a terrible voice-over at the end (seriously, WTF was that?), Strayed truly does not change physically, emotionally or in her relationships from beginning to end. Yet somehow the film goes out of its way to make her a hero, innocent and a victim in this crazy world around her. We see this when all the rangers, hikers, townsfolk, even customers at the diner she's waiting at all want to rape her or take advantage. Apparently every man in the 90s was absolutely horrible (even the husband she was cheating on who drove across the country to fetch her out of a drug den and save her life. Hrm
). The most ironic part is how Strayed described in the book that she wanted to sleep with nearly every man that crossed her path (including most men on the trail), and at times she said she had to hold herself back. And that's the worst part of Wild, the blatant, phony feminist propaganda. Feminism is so trendy in pop culture right now that everyone is claiming they're a part of the cause. But it's a word that is completely misappropriated and misused, especially by quite terrible role models such as Cheryl Strayed. She is a woman who wants to desperately be considered a feminist that she adjusts her story to justify her mistakes, even throwing in the line, "I am a feminist," into the movie to frantically convince us. But she's not. Being a selfish, inconsiderate asshole doesn't make you a feminist or a martyr. It makes you a selfish, inconsiderate asshole, and not a person the viewer should want to feel compassion for.
To be honest, one of the best parts of the book was the relationships and perspectives of others who Strayed came across on the trail. We got to hear what they were going through, not just getting hit over the head by a whiny Witherspoon. Yet the theatrical version (again) only focuses on Cheryl and her theoretical struggle with life (i.e. herself). We totally skip over all the other people who in my opinion were the 'therapists' and friends who helped Cheryl to grow and guide her change into a new woman and move beyond her horrible past.
If the story is intended to be one about personal growth and finding oneself, then there is none of that here in this adaptation. For a 15-minute montage Reese is bitching and moaning about hiking and her life, then suddenly we're at the end of the trek and she's telling us about how happy-ever-after things are going to be in the future. It was like Vallee just said, "I'm over it," and decided to end the terrible experiment. By the end of this movie I find myself really caring less about Strayed (even distrusting her more since she signed off on this thing), and I'm insulted by her story and embarrassed that so many embrace her and what she did as some sort of feminist martyrdom. I think Strayed was a stupid girl who did stupid things, and out of sheer blonde luck was able to survive a trek on her own. Even more luck, she was able to turn that mediocre story into millions of dollars in her pocket. So good for her. It's not a terrible movie, just a terrible story about a terrible person who wants us all to believe she's a saint. I don't buy it, and unfortunately I rented the movie
and bought the book.
Fifty Shades of Grey (2015)
Awful. Just, so, horribly awful
Let's get it out of the way: 50 Shades of Grey is one of the most laughable pieces of garbage I've ever sat through. I'll admit I read the first book, so I knew the quality (or lack of quality) the screenwriter would be working with to turn this joke of a story into a film. But honestly they could have produced something decent, at the very least tried to make it artistic or potentially thought provoking. The Secretary or 9 1/2 Weeks covered similar themes, and they seem poetic compared to this. In the end it's a mess, a boring slog of a mess that drags on and on until it climaxes with a tiresome yet lackluster ending (Really? That's the worst you want to do to her? Snooze...). No spoiler here: the movie ruins itself.
Let's talk about acting. For all the hoopla, I really don't see the draw of Jaimie Dornan or why he is in movies. Yeah yeah, I should watch The Fall. But really, he used to be a model? Is that why he's here? I love how much people are fawning over his workout regime, like, Wow! He did sit-ups and drank protein shakes to get a 6-pack, that's crazy. Honestly, for someone trying to be "The epitome of male beauty," he looked mediocre at best. I know all the lonely house-moms who've been waiting anxiously to personify their dirty little fantasies into an actual human being are dripping wet for this guy. But seriously, never once did I find myself have any emotion toward Dornan or think, "Now that's an attractive man." If anything I couldn't get past his stupid mouth, how it would crumple like a wilted sprig of ivy any time he tried to make sounds come out and hide his accent. And that's the true failure of this film. It wasn't the few sex scenes or the whips or floggers that made me or the audience uncomfortable. It was EVERYTHING ELSE.
Watching 50 Shades reminded me of watching a sequel that went straight to DVD. IMDb says the actors learned all their lines in 5 days. That's really not shocking. The dialog consisted mostly of, "Hello Anastasia," "Hi Christian," "Did you consider the contract Anastasia," "I'm still thinking about the contract Christian," "How about now Anastasia? Have you considered the contract now Anastasia?" "Maybe in a bit Christian." I felt like I was being forced to watch two people with no idea how to flirt or function in society try to reason through installing an Ikea bed using only their feet. "How will we put the boards together Christian? Should we use a screwdriver?" "Yes, Anastasia [*furrows brow, stares blankly at the floor], we could use a screwdriver" [*Anastasia bites her lip. Christian continues to stare blankly into the ether. Screwdriver is seen for half a second]. That actually sounds way more entertaining compared to this movie.
In short, Dornan couldn't act his way out of a cardboard box (even one for that king-sized bed from Ikea), and the film pays a huge price by casting him as the lead role. That being said: bless Dakota Johnson's heart. She really gave it her all in this movie and tried to make a steak dinner out of a baloney sandwich. She's relatable, plain and pleasant and does a fine job at her job (though anyone would appear great next to that block of wood named Dornan). The lack of chemistry is palpable, or bitterly dry (I don't know which is more accurate). You can't blame the girl. I couldn't imagine lying on a bed naked while cast and crew stare over you expecting you to moan and pretend to be turned on by a man with the personality of a washing machine pesters you over and over about a contract (Seriously give it a rest dude. You sound super rapey about the contract. And quit waking her up all the time. Let the poor girl sleep). Dakota's a decent actress, and I hope she pulls the rip cord and distances herself from this franchise before she gets typecast as "full frontal" girl.
If I took anything away from this film, it's that sadly human beings will do anything for a paycheck, and an audience will pay to see how boring it is. Mediocre has become the norm, and this film doesn't even make the grade. There's nothing good, or original, or edgy, or thought-provoking about 50 Shades. It feels dated, and designed to be fantasy porn for those too vanilla to try anything risqué in their own lives. Truthfully, if the main character wasn't a billionaire, or white, or attractive, this movie wouldn't be so popular. It would be a drama about horror, rape, and abuse and real issues people don't want to talk about. 50 Shades is a false portrayal of kink and a subculture that is already misunderstood. Really people just want to see two semi-attractive bodies rub up and down on each other and maybe daintily slap each other with whips (LOL, the kink in this movie is such a joke!).
For a movie gaining so much press because it covers the topic of sex, I wish I could have told it I had to work early in the morning and needed to go to bed. Nothing could ever make me watch this film again or convince me to see the sequel, even if they cast me over Dornan.